New journey (thread)

So finally after a while, I can see a new T. This will be the fourth one and because of this I really don't have positive expectations about it; but from what I understand, she's specialized in complex trauma, a thing that none of my previous Ts (I think) were specialized in because I previously didn't know what to look for in them and I still lived with my parents. In the city I'm in I don't really seem to find a T specialized in dissociative disorders, or if they are, they are too expensive to begin with, so...

I really hope this will be good. In our first meeting I just talked about my social anxiety, and I don't really think I mentioned dissociation and I don't know why. Maybe I'm scared it'll end up like the other ones, with her telling me that it's just common and/or she can't do anything about it. We'll have another meeting on Monday, and I think I'll really have to talk to her about that and about the experiences with the other Ts.
I'm really not sure how much time it'll take for me to talk about the others. I think I'll (and we all) be scared to do that for a while.

This will be a thread for myself and for us to share our new experience since I feel ready to sort of stand up for myself in therapy. We hope that at some point we'll finally receive answers and, finally, a diagnosis. This is all.

Have a great day everyone.

I hope this one works out better than previous ones for you.

{\Pixie/}

good luck with the new T, i hope it goes well. it's really hard to open up to someone in general, never mind when you've been let down before, so it's okay if it takes a while to talk about the dissociation stuff.

- alice

We hope this goes well for you. Having a new T is always a challenge.

I think it would be important to find out as soon as possible if she has experience with dissociative disorders. You don’t have to talk yet about your symptoms—it’s ok to interview HER about her experience. It requires specialized skills or the willingness to learn them as she goes along and to get supervision. In my opinion, treatment by someone who is inexperienced and doesn’t step up to what’s needed, is NOT better than no treatment.

I see Pixie replied for us, but I'll echo her sentiments. Good luck with the new T and I hope this is a step forward for you!

Thank you for the good luck because it was needed.
Luckily, the first session wasn't too bad. I was too scared to tell her about the others still, but I talked to her about part of my life story and what I could and couldn't remember, and she seemed to be really gentle and cautious when talking. I sensed that she wanted to make sure that she said the right things to make me feel at least a bit better and to validate my experiences. She then asked me at some point if I think about something specific when talking about getting a diagnosis. I then sort of panicked and told her that apart from my problems with dissociation and anxiety, I really couldn't "say I had anything" because I "felt ignorant about it when talking to a specialist". She then told me something that really set my hopes up, cause she said "for me, you know yourself better than anyone else that ever knew you". And she said that she hopes that my fear to tell her my thoughts about it all would go away soon.

In the end, I'm genuinely considering telling her. Bit by bit, testing the waters, but I'm on my way. Reaching out to her seems to have been a good idea after all.

In the meantime, I spent loads of money on clothes for everyone inside. And I think I'll have to communicate more with the girl (I think her name is Rebecca) that really wants to dress up all the time, because in the end, I'm pretty sure it's not me who adores to show off in heels.

exul wrote:Thank you for the good luck because it was needed.
Luckily, the first session wasn't too bad. I was too scared to tell her about the others still, but I talked to her about part of my life story and what I could and couldn't remember, and she seemed to be really gentle and cautious when talking. I sensed that she wanted to make sure that she said the right things to make me feel at least a bit better and to validate my experiences. She then asked me at some point if I think about something specific when talking about getting a diagnosis. I then sort of panicked and told her that apart from my problems with dissociation and anxiety, I really couldn't "say I had anything" because I "felt ignorant about it when talking to a specialist". She then told me something that really set my hopes up, cause she said "for me, you know yourself better than anyone else that ever knew you". And she said that she hopes that my fear to tell her my thoughts about it all would go away soon.

In the end, I'm genuinely considering telling her. Bit by bit, testing the waters, but I'm on my way. Reaching out to her seems to have been a good idea after all.

In the meantime, I spent loads of money on clothes for everyone inside. And I think I'll have to communicate more with the girl (I think her name is Rebecca) that really wants to dress up all the time, because in the end, I'm pretty sure it's not me who adores to show off in heels.

Glad it started out alright. Hope it continues to go well and the new T is as accepting of what's going on as you need and want.

And what the heck is wrong with high heels? They can really put shape to your legs and make wearing a flouncy dress or skirt a lot fun cuz they move more in that seriously flirtatious way!

{\Pixie/}

So, I've been out for a while because of many reasons, but I'm back here again just to put in here the things that I basically found out. And basically also to know if somebody knows someone with or has had the same experience themselves with other diagnosis, or knows something about the topic itself.

In these months some symptoms got worse (pseudohallucinations, depression, anxiety), and some got better (dissociation strangely got better, and other things). After talking with my T about my life story and what I remember from it, she came to a conclusion that pretty much shocked me at first, but that could fit most of my life problems until now.

Basically, she diagnosed me with ASD (specifically Asperger's). I never saw that coming, and I never knew that it was connected to hallucinations and/or social anxiety, because I never was really informed about it. She told me that at first she thought about trauma and a dissociative disorder, because of my anxiety or panic episodes concerning intimacy, and my very complex and seemingly independent "moods" (at this point I don't know how I should call them), and my amnesia episodes. But then, she told me that she thought again, and started to fit everything into the diagnosis of Autism. The hallucinations, the intrusive thoughts, apparently the intimacy problems, and the amnesia (or episodic memory as we talked about it), all could fit into the diagnosis she gave me. She told me that the people that I felt in my head and that I felt I had no control on, were basically part of how my neurodivergent brain handles things, and that I felt that they were real because with my disorder I have a really vivid imagination. She made it clear that she's not telling me that I made them up or something, but that it's totally natural to think that they are real since my brain really doesn't know how to distinguish what's in my head from what's actually happening (a thing that I sort of can relate to, and sort of not).

So, basically, from that moment I decided to totally stop thinking about it and "them" in general, even if it's difficult to not talk about them with all with my closest friends, since they sort of knew some of them and sometimes the topic comes up in conversations again before I have the time to tell them to stop talking about them. I from there began, since I don't want to delete them intirely, to consider them as characters in my head, rather than alters or a symptom of some DD.

This all happened a month ago, and since then nothing really happened. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least. I stopped almost all the harmful coping mechanisms that I engaged in to contain some of them, so that's good. No consequences until now. The only downside is that I'm becoming more and more depressed, but that could be totally unrelated to all this. I sort of expected some urges to come up again (violent and self-distructive ones), but they never did.

So yea. I'm stuck like this for now, and I'm starting to accept that probably I'll never have answers regarding most of the things that happened from the time I became aware of all of them.
At least nothing bad is happening, and at least I didn't add another disorder to the list. I'm grateful for this.

If this keeps going smoothly, then I don't think I'll feel the need to write here again, since yea, it'll mean I don't have a DD.

Hope everyone is doing well.

exul wrote:she told me that she thought again, and started to fit everything into the diagnosis of Autism. The hallucinations, the intrusive thoughts, apparently the intimacy problems, and the amnesia (or episodic memory as we talked about it), all could fit into the diagnosis she gave me. She told me that the people that I felt in my head and that I felt I had no control on, were basically part of how my neurodivergent brain handles things, and that I felt that they were real because with my disorder I have a really vivid imagination....

...The only downside is that I'm becoming more and more depressed, but that could be totally unrelated to all this. I sort of expected some urges to come up again (violent and self-distructive ones), but they never did.

DID results from early childhood trauma, and people with autism (including Aspergers) can be traumatized by childhood experiences or interactions that might not traumatize a neurotypical child, but amnesia and alternate identities are not symptoms of autism, they are symptoms of a dissociative disorder. You can have both, but the fact that you have to tell friends not to talk about the parts of you who they know, and that you're feeling more and more depressed don't seem like positive developments. Suppressing alters is not usually a good idea (and they might not be happy being considered characters resulting from your imagination).

exul wrote:She made it clear that she's not telling me that I made them up or something, but that it's totally natural to think that they are real since my brain really doesn't know how to distinguish what's in my head from what's actually happening (a thing that I sort of can relate to, and sort of not).

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If you didn't make them up, then they are real. Things can "actually" happen and also be going on in your head.

I hope you're able to sort this out. And I'm glad that things are going well in your life.